Selma to Montgomery March Byway - AL
Posted by: 
nomadwillie
N 32° 24.750 W 087° 00.986
16S E 498455 N 3586159
Starting in Selma AL at the Brown Church, walking 51 miles, ending at the State Capitol, the freedom civil rights workers marked a very important time in our history.
The coordinates are marked at the Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma AL.
Waymark Code: WMC4C3
Location: Alabama, United States
Date Posted: 07/24/2011
Views: 5
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three marches in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. They grew out of the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, launched by local African-Americans who formed the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL). In 1963, the DCVL and organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began voter-registration work. When white resistance to Black voter registration proved intractable, the DCVL requested the assistance of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who brought many prominent civil rights and civic leaders to support voting rights.
The first march took place on March 7, 1965 — "Bloody Sunday" — when 600 civil rights marchers were attacked by state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas. The second march took place on March 9. Only the third march, which began on March 21 and lasted five days, made it to the state capital, Montgomery, 51 miles (82 km) away.
The marchers averaged 10 miles (16 km) a day along U.S. Route 80, known in Alabama as the "Jefferson Davis Highway". Protected by 2,000 soldiers of the U.S. Army, 1,900 members of the Alabama National Guard under Federal command, and many FBI agents and Federal Marshals, they arrived in Montgomery on March 24, and at the Alabama Capitol building on March 25.[1]
The route is memorialized as the Selma To Montgomery Voting Rights Trail, a U.S. National Historic Trail.
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